1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of electronic communication and data processing. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to expanding communication schemes natively supported by a computer system.
2. Related Art
As the components required to build a computer system have reduced in size, new categories of portable electronic devices and computer systems have emerged. One of the new categories of computer systems is the “palmtop” computer system. A palmtop computer system is a computer that is small enough to be held in the hand of a user and can therefore be “palm-sized.” Most palmtop computer systems are used to implement various Personal Information Management (PIM) applications such as an address book, a daily organizer (calendar, datebook, etc.) and electronic notepads, to name a few. Palmtop computers with PIM software have been know as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Many PDAs have a small and flat display screen associated therewith. Moreover, PDAs and cell phones are being integrated together resulting in a single intelligent device that provides wireless communication capability.
User convenience and device value are very important factors for portable electronic devices and systems that may include portable electronic devices. Typically, portable electronic devices are employed while the user is on the run, e.g., in business meetings, on business travel, personal travel, in a vehicle, on foot, etc. Because the user may be occupied or busy while using the portable electronic device, the number of user steps or user tasks required in order to access information from an electronic device (or to store information into the electronic device) is crucial for producing a commercially successful and useful product. That is, the more difficult it is to access data from an electronic device, the less likely the user will perform those tasks to obtain the information. Likewise, the easier information is to obtain, the more likely the portable electronic device will be used to obtain that information and the more likely the portable electronic device will become a part of the user's everyday activities. Similarly, the more useful the device, the more the device will be used and acquired.
The rapid penetration of portable electronic devices into the home and business markets has augmented, not replaced, the usefulness of desktop, laptop and server computer systems. As a result, it is not uncommon for a single user to have a portable electronic device which may be connected to one or more other computer systems and/or servers, e.g., by wireless connections or over the Internet.
A scheme in a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the part that specifies the type of URL data that follows thereby specifying a particular transport mechanism to use for the communication. The scheme is separated from the rest of the URL by a colon. A program, such as a web browser software application, that handles the URL format will look for a scheme at the start of a URL. If the web browser software application knows how to handle that scheme, it will pass the rest of the URL off to some other routine that knows how to handle that particular scheme. The other routine then performs the transport.
Typical schemes are “http:” and “ftp:”. If an application running on a device does not recognize a particular scheme, it may allow other computer-resident “helper applications” which are registered with the application to handle other schemes. In this case, the device is providing native support for the ftp, it is just using another device-resident helper application, besides the first application, to process it. As an example, a browser application could allow an ftp program to be registered to handle the “ftp:” scheme. However, this prior art approach requires that the ftp program must already be loaded on the device and be registered with the browser application. In effect, this prior art approach merely provides device-native support for the URL schemes.
A robust Internet application, developed in view of the device-native prior art approach above, should be able to handle most of the URLs it receives. This requires that support for all URL schemes must be available within the application or natively via registered helpers on the device. However, hand-held devices have limited storage and limited network access capabilities. This complicates the process of keeping them updated with all the appropriate helper applications. The memory and processing resource constraints placed on hand-held devices make the above “device-native” approach an unsatisfactory solution to the problem of expanding the URL scheme processing capabilities of hand-held devices.
In addition, wireless network access is also more expensive than desktop access, so a user way want to use a desktop network solution even if the device can support the scheme natively. It would be advantageous to provide a solution that addresses the above concern.